oil spill

Category archives for oil spill

One of the things I’ve been arguing for years is that most people in the developed world, given a perceived lack of alternatives and no narrative to explain change and sacrifice, will do almost anything to keep their present way of life. I point out that if they become cold enough most people would shovel…

Yesterday I was on the phone with my Rabbi, who was asking me for data bout the BP oil spill and wanted to know whether there was any connection to peak oil. I told him that there certainly is – the BP oil spill is in many measures a consequence of a society under deep…

In the previous thread commenters DC Sessions and Prometheus have been discussing the pure aesthetic appreciation of the BP disaster and other man made problems with splendor that is grim. And what they say is true -and I think interesting and worth looking at. After all, all of us are just a teensie weensy wee…

If a whole nation can have its fingers crossed, I suspect it does right now. But what happens if it (and the other containment efforts) don’t work? I don’t think this is fear mongering,after 3 months of oil blowing into the Gulf. We have to ask the question. Greg Laden has an answer, by way…

Reader Stephen B. pointed me to this comment at The Oil Drum by someone who argues that there’s more going on under the Gulf that we think. For those who think it is strange that I be highlighting a comment in a thread, I should note that TOD attracts many, many petroleum geologists and other…

In 2006 when I first met Julian Darley, author of _High Noon for Natural Gas_ and the founder of the Post-Carbon Institute, the world was excited by then-famous “Jack” oil field find in the Gulf of Mexico. Both of us were watching the way the world was interpreting the data – people were claiming that…

Russian TV offers a potential solution to close up the oil leak in the Gulf – nuclear explosions. And no, Stephen Colbert isn’t going to pop out here – this is serious. Well, sorta. As the reporter points out, the flora and fauna of the Gulf may not thank you. On the other hand, how…

Thanks to fellow science blogger Ed Brayton for the link to this New York Times article, which suggests that because of ties to the company, BP chose to flood the Gulf with a dispersant that is both more toxic than many of the other options and also less effective. So far, BP has told federal…

We still don’t have the faintest idea how much oil is spewing out of the well in the Gulf. Nor do we have the faintest idea what the full environmental consequence of what may well be the biggest single-event human-caused. ecological disaster of all time (the very fact that I have to add the word…